Labour of love - part 3

So the cannula was in, Dr Duffy remained unpunched, and all that remained was to be induced.  This involved (unsurprisingly to those of you who have been following so far) more fingering.  Though this time with some sort of hormone gel.  The hormone gel was apparently SO effective that a) they would try it and wait six hours, b) because they didn't really expect it to work, they'd try it again six hours later c) then wait 24 hours and after that give up and put me on a drip.  Brilliant.  It sounded slightly less effective than the pineapple / long walk / sex / blowjob / curry combo already recommended.

Still, Whipps Cross being as busy as it was (see earlier reference to bastard queue jumpers), I got bumped out of my private delivery room and stuck back on a ward.  No induction for me.  My "natural" contractions were happening about every ten minutes, barely strong enough for me to feel, and certainly not enough to push a massive fat baby out.

The day passed.  I read more of Remains of the Day.  TheBloke (TM) spent more time with some Angry Birds.  At 6 p.m. "dinner" was served.  "Would you like a cheese and tomato sandwich or a tuna and cucumber sandwich?"  I could take no more and sent TheBloke (TM) out for McDonalds.  One McChicken Sandwich, fries, chocolate milkshake and an apple pie later, Whipps Cross were ready to induce me.

So I was fingered by yet another midwife (I assume she was a midwife, not just a passing stranger.  I probably should have asked.  By this stage I was willing to show my foo-foo to pretty much anyone who asked, and quite a few people who didn't).  The special gel was inserted, and I was instructed to go for a walk, to make it work.  Well, I couldn't be arsed to put my clothes on again, so TheBloke (TM) and I went for a wander around the hospital.  At which point, in my nightdress, with one slightly leaky boob, I bumped into an immaculately-groomed member of my NCT group, who had come in for induction THAT MORNING and had already been induced.  (See: queue-jumping bastards).  I had been in hospital for 24 hours by this stage.

Miraculously (it seemed) after about an hour, contractions started in earnest.  They are kind of hard to describe.  A little bit like period pains, but only lasting for about a minute each time.  A crescendo and then diminuendo of pain, each crescendo reaching greater heights than the previous.

Turns out TheBloke (TM) was right, and I don't have much of a threshold for pain. We came back to our bed on the ward (where no-one else was in labour, and where I must have terrified the other patients, as I  understand I got a bit shouty when I was told that there weren't any rooms available for gas and air and the anaesthetist who was going to do the epidural had been called away).

When a contraction was in full force, I couldn't speak, couldn't shout, couldn't do anything other than focus on the pain.  TheBloke (TM) had been to all of the classes.  "Breathe," he said, supportively, "breathe."

I am given to understand my response was, "Of course I'm going to fucking breathe.  As if I'm going to forget to breathe.  Do you think one of the leading causes of maternal deaths is forgetting to fucking breathe, you fucking moron?"

It was shortly after this point, the midwives decided (probably for the sake of the other patients) that perhaps I should have some diamorphine.

I asked how long it would take to work and was told about twenty minutes.  So I thought I'd venture to the toilet in the interim.  Two things to note: diamorphine takes approximately 30 seconds to work on me.  Also, isn't the word "toilet" funny when you think about it for too long?  So long, in fact, TheBloke (TM) had to hammer on the door to ask if I was OK.  I was fine.  Just giggling at the word toilet.

Here is a picture of me in the middle of a strong contraction after the injection of lovely diamorphine.

I'll be honest, the next hour or so is a bit of a blur.  I updated Twitter with something along the lines of, "Had morphine - off my tits."  But I had to correct it twice, as I accidentally wrote "off my tots".  Which kind of illustrated my point.

Apparently I was then moved back to a delivery room.  I have no recollection of this.  But this might be because the diamorphine had made me look a bit like this.

I don't know if you can see in this photo, but I am definitely smirking.

This was probably the high point of the labour.  Tune in soon for: enemas, random shitting, sexual harassment of a midwife and eventually... a baby.